The long term effects of an aging fleet on operational availability and cost: evidence from the U.S. coast guard

This paper empirically examines whether the aging of a fleet affects operational availability and operating cost using a unique data-set on the 117 47-foot Motor Lifeboats (MLBs) of the United States Coast Guard (USCG). Procured from 1997 to 2003, the 47-foot MLB is the standard lifeboat of the USCG and all 117 MLBs remain in service. The aging of the MLB fleet has resulted in higher annual operating costs and lower operational availability, although the nature of this relationship remains unclear. Our estimation strategy utilizes an error components estimator to examine these issues. We employ three variants of the dependent variables (i.e. the standard logarithmic transformation as is most commonly seen in the literature, inverse hyperbolic sine [IHS], and level outcomes). The point estimates from the standard logarithmic model finds operational availability for the MLBs decreases at a rate between 0.83 and 1.8% per year and cost increases at a rate between 0.33 and 7.81% per year. Similar effects are shown with the IHS and level outcome specifications. In terms of nonlinearity effects, we find the most pronounced changes in operational availability and cost occur for MLBs aged 15 years or more (in comparison to younger MLBs).     

The political economy of drones

This paper provides a political economy analysis of the evolution of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or ‘drones’ in the USA. Focus is placed on the interplay between the polity and private economic influences, and their impact on the trajectory of political, economic, and military outcomes. We identify the initial formation of the drone industry, trace how the initial relationships between the military and the private sector expanded over time, and discuss present relationships. Understanding the historical evolution of UAV technology, as well as the major players in the industry today, is important for ongoing policy debates regarding the use of drones both domestically and internationally.     

NUCLEAR STABILITY AT LOW NUMBERS

Chinese writings on the workings of nuclear stability, deterrence, and coercion are thin and politicized. Nevertheless, it is possible to glean, from direct and inferential evidence, rather pessimistic conclusions regarding Chinese views of nuclear stability at low numbers. While China has been living with low numbers in its own arsenal for decades, today it views missile defense and advanced conventional weapons as the primary threat to nuclear stability. More generally, China views nuclear stability as wedded to political amity. Because none of these would be directly addressed through further US and Russian arsenal reductions, China is unlikely to view such reductions as particularly stabilizing. While there is little in Chinese writing to suggest lower US and Russian numbers would encourage a “race to parity,” there are grounds to worry about China becoming more assertive as it gains confidence in Beijing's own increasingly secure second-strike forces.     

The 1907 Naval War Plans and the second Hague peace conference: A case of propaganda 1

The phenomenon of mutual sea denial had rendered offensive naval actions such as commercial blockade impossible in the narrow seas around Europe. Consequently, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Fisher, abandoned commercial blockade for the safer option of interdicting enemy commerce on the high seas where the Royal Navy could control communications. The proposal to extend immunity to all private property at sea at the 1907 Hague Conference threatened this strategy. As part of a wider campaign to convince the British establishment to oppose immunity, Fisher created the 1907 Naval War Plans to directly influence Cabinet decision-making. Fisher's close involvement in the creation of the ‘Plans’ indicates that they are an expression of Fisher's strategic vision. Moreover, Fisher's attempt to influence the Cabinet asks questions of the bureaucratic decision-making process within the British establishment before 1914.     

Book Reviews

Iain McCallum, Blood Brothers Hiram and Hudson Maxim: Pioneers of Modern Warfare. London: Chatham, 1999. Pp. 224, 33 illus., 2 maps, biblio., index. £20. ISBN 1–86176–096–5.

Eric Ash, Sir Frederick Sykes and the Air Revolution, 1912–1918. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999. Pp.xviii + 268, 20 illus., 3 maps, biblio., index. £42.50/$59.50 (cloth), £18.50/$27.50 (paper). ISBN 0–7146–4828–0 and ‐4382–3.

Azar Gat, Fascist and Liberal Visions of War: Fuller, Liddell Hart, Douhet, and other Modernists. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Ppviii + 334, biblio., index. £45. ISBN 0–19–820715–8.

David B. Woolner (ed.), The Second Quebec Conference Revisited: Waging War, Formulating Peace: Canada, Great Britain, and the United States in 1944–1945. Basingstoke; London: Macmillan Press, 1998. Pp.xiii + 210, index. £32.50. ISBN 0–333–75970–2.

Jeffrey Grey. Up Top: The Royal Australian Navy and Southeast Asian Conflicts 1955–1972. St Leonards NSW: Allen &; Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1998. Pp.xx + 380, 110 illus., 12 tables, 23 maps &; diagrams, appendices, notes, biblio., index. NP. ISBN 1–86448–290–7.

Susan L Carruthers, The Media at War. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. Pp.321, biblio., index. £14.99 (paper). ISBN 0–333–69143–1, also available in hardback.

Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller Jr, Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf War. Washington DC: Naval Historical Center, 1998. Pp.xxi + 517, 120 illus., 14 maps, biblio., index. NP. ISBN 0–1604–9476–1.

Marvin Pokrant, Desert Shield at Sea: What the Navy Really Did and Desert Storm at Sea: What the Navy Really Did. Both Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Pp.xxiii + 265,9 illus., biblio., index. £44.95. ISBN 0–313–31023–8. Pp.xxiv + 329,12 illus., biblio., index. NP. ISBN 0–313–31024–6.

David Kaularich and Ronald C. Kramer, Crimes of the American Nuclear State: At Home and Abroad. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999. Pp.xviii + 195, biblio., index. £42.75. ISBN 1–55553–371‐X.

Stanley Hoffmann, World Disorders: Troubled Peace in the Post‐Cold War Era. Lanham, MD: Rowman &; Littlefield, 1998. Pp.viii+279, notes, index. $29.95. ISBN 0–8476–8574–8.

Lawrence Freedman (ed.), Strategic Coercion: Concepts and Cases. Oxford: Oxford‐University Press, 1998. Pp.400, index. £48. ISBN 0–19–829–349–6.

Stephen J. Cimbala, Coercive Military Strategy. College Station, TX: Texas A&;M University Press, 1998. Pp.229, biblio, index; $39.95. ISBN 0–89096–836–5     

‘All Innovation Leads to Hellfire’: Military Reform and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century

The debates on the pace, scope and nature of Ottoman military reform tend to be dominated by domestic and/or cultural explanations. Issues of military competition and efficiency, embodied in Neorealist perspectives, might appear to have little to offer as an explanatory tool in the Ottoman context. This article argues that this view is mistaken. First, despite their value, there remains an indeterminacy about domestic and cultural explanations that limits their usefulness as single-cause explanations. Second, Neorealism does generate valuable insights into the dynamics of military reform in the Ottoman Empire; issues of military competition and efficiency do matter in explaining the nature of Ottoman military reform during this period. Ultimately, domestic, cultural, and Neorealist perspectives are complementary, and mono-causal explanations of eighteenth century developments in the Ottoman military are likely to be too simplistic.     

The multivariate Polya distribution in combat modeling

This paper investigates the multivariate Polya distribution (MPD) for application in combat models for which enemy targets must be randomly assigned to fighting units. Six sets of actual combat data motivate the allocation model. Scenarios include air‐to‐air combat, tank, and submarine warfare. Goodness of fit tests are derived which verify the validity of the MPD, and reinforce the notion that multinomial allocation is too simplistic for such combat models. Simulations to determine optimal allocations for minimal combat cost are applied in order to illustrate the role of the MPD in combat modeling. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons,Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 1–17, 2001     

The limits of covert action: SAS operations during ‘Confrontation’, 1964–66

This article evaluates the performance of the Special Air Service (SAS) during secret cross-border raids conducted as part of Britain’s undeclared war against Indonesia from 1963–1966. The analysis reviews the existing debate on the SAS’ performance during this campaign; it looks more closely at how military effectiveness might be defined; and it then examines, using the SAS’ own operations reports, the nature of their activities and their success or failure. This article concludes that critics of the SAS’ effectiveness during Confrontation are right; but for the wrong reasons. SAS operations did indeed have less effect than orthodox accounts would have it. But the reasons for this lay not in their misuse but in the exigencies of British strategy. This article demonstrates an enduring truth – no matter how ‘special’ a military force might be, tactical excellence cannot compensate reliably for problems in strategy.     

Problematising the Role of Private Security Companies in Small Wars

This article sets out to investigate the impact of Private Security Companies (PSCs)1 1. The term PSC is used generically in this article. on civil wars. In doing so, it has taken an historical line, outlining the way the industry has developed from when it first emerged on the international stage in the late 1960s, to the present. Importantly, the article is able to identify three broad strands of involvement in civil wars that include substituting for state military forces, propping up weak governments, and supplementing state militaries. Moreover, in each of these situations, the involvement of PSCs raises both moral and legal questions, as well as challenges for government. This is especially so in light of their activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and the likelihood that governments will increasingly turn to them for niche capabilities.